*Official* South Africa in New Zealand 2022

[Flametree]

Great catch. Not sure about Blundell....

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

Get a climate, NZ

 

[Meridio]

Blundell's feet rooted to the ground there. Was clearly his catch, well picked up by Mitchell though, those are difficult

 

[GoodAreasShane]

And Rabada once again conclusively proves his batting is a myth

 

[Meridio]

When McMillan's commentating you can tell why he never really fulfilled his promise as a bat. Always goes on about having a go to try and get runs quickly since there'll always be one with your name on it - that's almost always such a cop out, just a lack of trust in your defence and lack of willingness to tough things out for a while. It's test cricket, it's hard and takes time.

 

[straw man]

Very important (and frustrating) tail wag - big difference imo between a score of 320 (which looked likely at 302/8) and 370-380. Just think the latter leaves you very unlikely to lose the match, while still quite possible with the former score.

Still annoyed about NZ's dropped catches - that's cost perhaps 50-80 runs.

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

These are valuable runs for SA at this stage of their innings...Maharaj to come and he can hold his own with the bat...350 is likely.

Yes sir!

 

[BeeGee]

Superb hitting from these two. Putting the icing on the cake.

 

[Meridio]

Why have we fallen into the trap of bowling short at tailenders? I know that's Wagner's m.o., but that tends to work best against actual batsmen. Best way to get tailenders out is pretty much always to just bowl normally and they'll get themselves out

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

This is top quality batting

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

Good grab that

 

[trundler]

So... Maharaj will give you about as many runs as Markram at this stage.

 

[Fuller Pilch]

NZ will need to bat really well today. South African tail is pretty good - might be a bit like their return after readmission when the specialist bats were okay but nothing special, but the team batted really deep.

 

[Fuller Pilch]

364. Would have taken that at the start of the day, but 320 would've been a lot better.

 

[Fuller Pilch]

5 man attack for SA in this test too.

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

That was magical!

 

[straw man]

You can complain about the strangle down the legside being unlucky, but that was a shocking shot to play in the first over from Latham.

It's really no different to a lazy waft two feet outside offstump.

 

[SteveNZ]

You can complain about the strangle down the legside being unlucky, but that was a shocking shot to play in the first over from Latham.

Yup. That is a poor shot

 

[Fuller Pilch]

Latham's terrible record vs SA continues.

Conway needs to go big.

 

[straw man]

For some reason just feel like we're not in this match - or maybe it's just me and the distractions of the world right now. Would be a very odd home summer of test cricket if NZ put in two absolutely dominant performances and two terrible ones, from basically the same XI.

Momentum definitely a thing in test cricket though, and in the two dominant performances we took that early and never let up. Don't have that here.